Japan : Okonomiyaki

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Last week-end we went to the restaurant to eat okonomiyaki. In this particular restaurant they bring you the ingredients already mixed and you cook your okonomiyaki yourself on a heating table. We were four at each table and at my table we decided that we will share all the okonomiyaki so that everybody could have a taste of everything. We ordered four okonomiyaki, that was too much and we were all full but not enough for the free desert ankogyoza.
More about the okonomiyaki here.
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Japan : 深大寺 and 神代植物公園

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This week-end I went to the 深大寺 and 神代植物公園 with some friends. That wasn't the first time that I went to this temple. The first time was few weeks ago during the festival with my supervisor. I also went once or twice on my own but with the other that's a lot funnier. We first has delicious soba noodles at one of the temple restaurants. Then we walk around the temple and went to the botanic garden. That was my first time in the botanic garden. I think I will have to go back there when the roses are actually blooming. But the green house was interesting. I took to many picture of flowers.
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For more about the day, see also my friend's blog.

Ireland : Peninsula

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We took an other road trip on the peninsula on the south, and east of Belfast.

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Ireland : The North Coast

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We went for a ride in car to the North Coast. Yeah at the time we still had a car. We stop at different places including Ballycastle and Ballygalley.
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Ireland : Holywood

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Holywood is a little city on the coast, in the north-east of Belfast.
We went to spend on afternoon there and walk along the see. It was in March 2007, it was a bit windy but amazingly sunny.
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I finished RTK1

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So that's it. After doing it, 3 times because I stayed stuck twice around 1400 kanjis and had to start again from the beginning again. After struggling with my kanjis stories never remembering them, never having them vivid enough. After finally deciding that it was just 2042, like a drop in the ocean compare to the 50000 hanjis in the biggest Chinese dictionary I know of. After deciding that is was going to be fun and easy and that there was no way around it... (I keep on telling people that everything is easy and that drive them crazy)

Well that's it, yesterday I finished to learn my 2042 kanjis.

I feel kind of relieved in a way. That's it. I know them. I just have to let anki decide when I need to review them to be sure not to forget them ever again.
I'm also hyper excited. I never wanted to learn properly hiragana (review them) and katakana so badly.
I want to learn how to say the kanjis out loud.
I want to put hundreds of sentences in my SRS just cause I can.
And I want more kanjis. I know that's sound crazy. People are always afraid of kanjis but I think that's because they learn it a such a painful way. Me, I have fun all the way. Even when I failed at it, it was really fun anyway and I just want more, and more and more. I also really like complicated ones. I like when people look at my kanjis papers -I have plenty everywhere in my room and in my office- and tell me this one is too complicated, I don't use this one, you don't need this one. I don't care a kanji is a kanji, I'll probably meet it somewhere crazy and then I will go : "See I needed it". I'm pretty much addicted to kanji learning. It's hard to think I won't add more to my SRS tonight.

Anyway it's no time to rest. It's time to hurry and get some Japanese.

Ireland : Cavehill (Belfast)

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I spend the last four years living in Belfast and I never wrote anything decent about Ireland. I'm not going to be complaining about the "horizontal rain" I had there in this post. I'm going to show you some pictures of Cavehill.
It's a hill near Belfast where you can go when it's not raining (yes, yes sometimes you can get lucky). You arrive first near the Belfast castle, it's pretty easy to get in. Everybody can just get in. That really surprised me. You can go visit the garden and also hiking to the cave and to one of the peaks called Napoleon's nose due to the shape I suppose. From there you have a good view of the city.
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